Saturday, August 30 – 19:51

I’m unsure of a couple of squares, but overall I did good for a Saturday.  The six 15-letter answers are:

17A, Carrier of fatty acids – GOODCHOLESTEROL
38A, Common restaurant offering that was Julia Child’s last meal – FRENCHONIONSOUP
59A, Name associated with spirits – EBENEZERSCROOGE
3D, Unenthusiastic response to an offer – IDONTFEELLIKEIT
7D, 1965 hit parodied by the Beatles’ “Back in the U.S.S.R.” – CALIFORNIAGIRLS
12D, Bakery item folded in half – PARKERHOUSEROLLS

It’s this last I’m not sure about.  Specifically the PARKER part.  The K comes from 21A, Cartoon cat with an exclamation mark in his name – EEK.  And the E comes from 26A, N.B.A. All-Star Michael – REDE.  So 12D could be PARLOR or something, possibly.  I really have no clue on the across crossings.  Also, 28D, Hamlet – EARP, and 33A, Kia model – RIA (RIO?).  I don’t understand EARP, so I’m assuming it’s wrong.

Favorite answer, 1A, Bum – HEINIE.

Friday, August 29 – 15:33

A nice themeless from Mike Nothnagel with many good long answers.  Here are a few:

5A, Way around in comic books – BATMOBILE
21A, S.E.Hinton classic – THEOUTSIDERS
44A, Providers of many openings? – SKELETONKEYS
51A, “No way, no how” – NOTONADARE
2D, They’re blown up and thrown up – BEACHBALLS
9D, Person who’s talented but not versatile – ONETRICKPONY
19D, “That’s enough out of you!” – PUTASOCKINIT
26D, Protest music pioneer – PETESEEGER

Thursday, August 28 – 15:41

When I realized what the theme was in today’s puzzle, I kicked myself for not seeing it sooner.  It’s titles/slogans where the first word (I in all cases) is replaced with EYE.

20A, Historical 1976 miniseries – EYECLAUDIUS
11D, Classic 1947 detective novel – EYETHEJURY
29D, Bygone political slogan – EYELIKEIKE

all tied together by 53A, Punny hint to answering [the other three] – ANEYEFORANI

Btw, Will Shortz made a short appearance on The Colbert Report last night.  Stephen mentioned that it was Will’s birthday and asked him who he was voting for.  Will (who wasn’t on the show up to that point but appeared when Stephen asked the question, and disappeared afterwards) said you’d have to look at the first letters to the answers in Sunday’s cryptic crossword to find the answer.

Wednesday, August 27 – 8:41

I almost thought I had something wrong because I had the word YARE as an answer for 50D, “Easy to maneuver, at sea”.  I’d never heard this word before, but all the crossings looked correct.  After I finished (leaving in YARE), I looked it up and was surprised to learn about it.  How about that.

So the theme was punny phrases where the first word is repeated once:

20A, Some fruit still lifes? – PAWPAWPRINTS
26A, Showy dance intro? – CANCANOPENER
41A, Gobbler in a powwow musical group? – TOMTOMTURKEY
47A, Chocolate’s journey – BONBONVOYAGE

Tuesday, August 26 – 8:18

A bit of a tougher Tuesday.  The three theme answers are all clued the same, with “Rose”:

20A is AMERICANBEAUTY
36A is CHARLIEHUSTLE (Pete, the baseball player)
57A is TOOKTOONESFEET

I went about the clues in a somewhat helter skelter manner, which probably had something to do with my time.

Monday, August 25 – 4:49

Today’s theme is phrases that begin with P_CK, with a different vowel (in alphabetical order) in each one:

16A, Be very potent – PACKAPUNCH
22A, Social hierarchy – PECKINGORDER
35A, Very best puppy or kitten – PICKOFTHELITTER
45A, Miscellaneous coins – POCKETCHANGE
57A, Got ready to kiss – PUCKEREDUP

Sunday, August 24 – 25:07

A not-too-hard Sunday with a theme part of which I guessed after just a handful of clues.  I say “part of” because there are two aspects to the theme.  First there are the four “Instruction” clues, and second there is a rebus in filling in a bunch of other answers.

The second clue I attempted, 5A, was “U.K. counterespionage agcy.”.  I knew this was MI5, and coupled with 7D, “Costing a nickel”, I figured that must be 5CENT.  From then on I was on the lookout for answers with numbers in them.

So first here are all the rebus answers:

5A, MI5
8A, Belonging to – AS1OF
13A, July holiday, with “the” – 4TH
78A, Need for a winner of a Wimbledon men’s match – 3SETS
83A, It follows the initial part of a procedure – STEP2
109A, Staples of early education – 3RS
113A, How one must win in Ping-Pong – BY2
127A, Common hockey power play – 5AGAINST4
149A, Slay somebody – DO1IN

7D, Costing a nickel – 5CENT
10D, Cyclops feature – 1EYE
13D, Structure of Checkov’s “The Cherry Orchard” – 4ACTS
66D, File on an iPod – MP3
73D, 1940s conflict: Abbr. – WW2
109D, N.Y.C. time when it’s midnight in L.A. – 3AM
114D, Like a team that’s ahead by a safety – 2UP
127D, Highest-rated, as a hotel – 5STAR
128D, Like the majority of interstate highways – 4LANE
141D, In accord (with) – AT1

The five “instruction” clues at 30A, 48A, 67A, 97A, and 138A are, respectively:

CUTALONGTHEDOTTEDLINE
FOLDTHROUGHEACH
PAIROFNUMBERS
INTHEGRIDSEQUENTIALLY
GOTHROWTHEPAPERAIRPLANE

Coupled with the title of the puzzle, “Come Fly With Me”, and the rebus answers, we see that we are provided with steps to transform the puzzle into a paper airplane.  Cool beans.

Saturday, August 23 – 23:36

Oy, six wrong squares.  The inexcusable mistake was at 62A, “Opposite of simplicity”.  I put ORNERINESS instead of ORNATENESS.  This led to 36D, “They work by themselves” being AUTOMATE, which doesn’t make sense (I had AUTOMATS in my head, and I didn’t cross-check it once I put in ORNERINESS).  58D, “Sat”, became MER instead of MET - another lack of cross-checking.  And 54D was SINI, which I did catch and knew made no sense, but I couldn’t get a sense of the clue.

So that’s three wrong squares.  The other three were 31A, I had TWEEK for “Minor modification” instead of TWEAK.  And I has DDS for 38A, “Inits. associated with Mr. Hyde”.  I figured he was a dentist in the story, d’oh!  No, it’s RLS (Robert Louis Stevenson).  This made 12D, “Human as opposed to an animal, notably” be REASONED instead of REASONER and 13D, “Of heraldry” be ARMORIED instead of ARMORIAL.

Some other randomly picked answers for you, dear reader, are:

1A, Oil-based paste mentioned in the lyrics to “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” – those porters with looking-glass eyes, how would you describe them?  Oh yes, PLASTICINE
24A, Headmaster of literature – our favorite wizard, DUMBLEDORE
49A, Underhanded change, slangily – SWITCHEROO
57A, Existential musing – WHYAMIHERE
60A, Folkies’ do – HOOTENANNY

Incidentally, I was at a hootenanny just a few weeks ago when I took my almost-three-year-old to see Pete Seeger, his grandson, and Guy Davis perform in a very small venue – what a grand treat to see Pete do “Abiyoyo” while acting out the part of the giant, not to mention “This Land is Your Land”.  I’ll post a picture tomorrow.

Saturday, August 22 – 24:51

An 18-black-square puzzle (a new record for fewest black squares) from Kevin Der with six 15-letter answers is today’s nut to crack, which I did in a long 24:51, and still got four squares wrong.  The six long entries are:

1A, It has 33 letters – RUSSIANLANGUAGE (not ALPHABET, as I put first)
16A, All-Star Game, e.g. – INTERLEAGUEPLAY
17A, Optionally – ASANALTERNATIVE
51A, Pro at protection – INSURANCEBROKER
53A, Health form field – NEARESTRELATIVE
54A, “An Inconvenient Truth” topic – GREENHOUSEGASES

The ones I got wrong were:

26A, Actress Berger – I had something like MESTA instead of SENTA
34A, Tacoma-to-Walla Walla dir. – ESE (I had SSE)
37A, Rio ____, multinational coal-mining giant – I put TINCO (sounded plausible) instead of TINTO
13D, Spanish city and province on the Mediterranean – ALICANTE (don’t remember what I had, but it wasn’t ALICANTE)
26D, Some Rockefeller Center murals – SERTS

Thursday, August 21 – 19:26

This was a very hard Thursday and I confess I think it’s the first Thursday I couldn’t finish since I started blogging.  What I couldn’t get was the middle block on the W side of the puzzle.  It had six, count ‘em, _six_ proper nouns among the nine answers that comprised the block.  I call foul, Gary J. Whitehead, if you’re reading this.  And you too, Will Shortz.

So what did I manage to get?  Well I got the theme and the theme answers:

19A, Musical group that stays together? – ADHESIVEBAND
34A, Faith healing service? – MASSTHERAPY
42A, Stadium’s dome? – SPORTSCOVER
55A, Donation to the Salvation Army? – GARBDISPOSAL
68A, Eternal…and a hint to [the four theme answers] – AGELESS

Punny I like.  So what I didn’t like was that one block, as I said.  Here’s what I had there:

26A, Part of Eastern Europe, once: Abbr – SSRS (an iffy guess, since the clue sounded singular)
33A, Mountain West Conference player – UTE (a total guess)
38A, Iowa county named for an Indian tribe – S__ (just from the down)
42A, Stadium’s dome? – SPORTSCOVER (I’m fairly certain about this one)
46A, Designer Saab – ERTE (eh, a guess, but a known crossword word)
49A, City near Dayton – X__IA (just from the downs)
26D, Northernmost county in New Jersey – SUSSEX (total guess)
27D, Chase scenes, in action films – ST_PR_ (wha?)
28D, Bring back, as silver dollars – RE_OT_

So I wanted 28D to be REMINT, but that didn’t work, and I suspected SUSSEX was wrong because of the X in 49A.  It turns out I was pretty lucky in my guesses – SSRS, UTE, and SUSSEX are right, ERTE is wrong.  The ones I didn’t get are:

38A, SAC
46A, ELIE
49A, XENIA
27D, STAPLE
28D, RECOIN (recoin???  this seems weak to me)

I maybe could have gotten STAPLE if I’d had another letter, or been surer about the crossings.